What’s Wrong With The Buffalo Bills?

As I watched the rest of the NFL during the Buffalo Bills bye week, I couldn’t help but wonder why it’s so easy for other teams, but yet so difficult for the Bills. What I mean by that is, on offense, these teams run a basic end around sweep with the WR, or a screen play and get positive yards from that. However, we don’t see it done by Buffalo too often, let alone for positive yards. Of course, that’s not the only thing wrong with Buffalo. So where can they improve down this regular season stretch?

Offense

Despite what the stats show, there’s something wrong with the Buffalo Bills offense. They added a couple big time pieces there, with Dalton Kincaid and O’Cyrus Torrence. They added depth receivers like Deonte Harty and Trent Sherfield, who both produced with their former teams before coming to Buffalo. Despite being a top-five team in terms of total offense, something wasn’t clicking.

The Bills fired Ken Dorsey after their game against the Denver Broncos and we’ve seen slight improvements since then. They dominated against the NY Jets, and played a very good game against the Philadelphia Eagles. But when it came down to it, the coaching staff took the offense off of the field before OT with 20 seconds left. That’s the only flaw the offense had last week, and it wasn’t even their fault.

Joe Brady could do a better job of getting Stefon Diggs, who’s only had 135 yards through the last three games, more involved. For how electric the offense is when it goes through Diggs, he’s been very quiet lately. If they can get him going again, the unit should be unstoppable.

Defense

This is the side of the ball where the real issue lies. Time after time, when the offense goes off the field with the lead, the defense chokes the game away and Buffalo comes up short. The defense deserves some slack, considering the injuries they’ve had. But, with how well rounded the unit was going into the season and the depth they had, it’s insane how much they’ve regressed under McDermott. The defense ranks 11th in the league, allowing 319.9 yards on average and 25 TDs.

The team added depth there in free agency and during the trade deadline, Leonard Floyd, Rasul Douglas, and Linval Joseph to name a few. The list goes on but, besides Floyd and Douglas, they haven’t had an impact this season. They’ve had some nice production from AJ Epenesa and Terrel Bernard, but it hasn’t been enough to slow opposing offenses down. Coach McDermott put added pressure on himself when he took over the DC role from Leslie Frazier, and so far this season, his defense continues to fall short.

McDermott’s defense has been handed the lead late in the game four times this season and, in three of those four games, the defense gave up the lead. At some point, people have to realize the offense isn’t the biggest issue here and the defense has been letting the team down. A far cry from what fans expected under McDermott.

Overview

The offense under Joe Brady has been a nice change from that of Ken Dorsey. They’ve also had nice production from role players such as Ty Johnson and Khalil Shakir. However, the turnovers have put the team in bad situations. They’ve done a nice job to dig themselves out of that hole, but at times have been let down by the defense. Because of that, the team is 1-3 in games where the offense walks off the field with the lead. But, I don’t want to be totally negative. The KC Chiefs didn’t look hot on Sunday night, and the LA Chargers only scored six points against the New England Patriots. The Buffalo Bills still have time to turn this ship around.

Featured Image Credit: AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes